English and Hindi poetry and prose, published as well as experimental. Book reviews, essays, translations, my views about the world and world literature, religion, politics economics and India. Formerly titled "random thoughts of a chaotic being" (2004-2013).

Monday, October 25, 2010

Ma, find me a cherub-face woman, a wife with tongue, with cheek,
neither anorexic nor geek, whose gift is to cook and eat
three aaloo paranthas, while I feast on six.

I don't like the skins stretched tight on bones,
those puckered jowls, like empty bowls,
interest me not. For me a woman is hot
when she has neither too less nor too much makhan-butter
under her skin. Ma my liking begins when hips
are strong for carrying pots of water like in medieval
paintings, and there's a sideways swing, in her walking.

Ma, our family must not have a bahu without a pallu,
for you know, I am a man who does not display
his wealth in open, and I like my woman to know it
that sachchi beauty lies within, and you mustn't show it.
It is no easy matter, the pallu-less lack character,
(all my friends and countryman say so). I am not picky Ma,
about she wants, eats or wears, but the world has tongue and ears
and you only tell me Ma, who wants it to end in shame and tears?

Ma, find me a plum-aalobukhara woman, a wife with cheeks and chin,
neither moti nor thin, one with happy grin, with a bite in her beak,
and yet koel melodious, may honey drip off her lips.

Ma I don't like the soft lip, I want to hear it, clanging loud and free speech,
if she is not frank, there's kachra in her think-tank. For if she reads essays
by feminists, and thinks our family as male-violent, keeps her anger latent,
she will famish from within. My woman must express, blast music speakers with her voice,
for if she visits a restaurant or a shop, every customer ought to sense and know it.
Ma I want my woman to curse, when others commit errors,
and I want her to rehearse heeran-ballads at all hours.

I am sitting on empty ground Ma, I want her to make it a playground Ma.

Ma I desire a wife, not intellectual strife, not daily gripe, only ripe
with the juice of life. I don't care for her grades Ma, nor for twenty-four waist Ma.
There is no haste, take your time Ma, but remember, I am turning twenty-nine Ma.

Age is not a issue, caste no issue, Ma, but she must have some height Ma,
A four feet, seven inches wife, with a six feet tall hunk, doesn't look right Ma.
Also check that she has no boyfriends, medical tantrums, no eloping plans,
no divorces in her family's past, no crime in eleven generations, no genetic defects,
her birth-chart should be right Ma, (Lila's love-marriage-waala husband died Ma).
Finally Ma: She must respect the elders & rituals in all weathers, cook aaloo-gobhi and tarka daal,
have no stoop, no eye defects: sohni kudi, tesohna-face, with enough cheek and thirty-two teeth,
and just the right combination of head, heart and makhan on less than six number-size feet.

Vivek is a published poet. He reads & writes in Hindi and English. His poetry and essays in English are published in Poetry, Atlanta Review, The Cortland Review, Kartika
Review, Bateau, Muse India, Reading Hour, etc. He contributes columns and verses to Divya
Himachal (Hindi newspaper in India). Vivek's first collection, "Saga of a Crumpled Piece of
Paper" (63 poems, English, Writers
Workshop, Calcutta) was published in 2009.

Vivek spend his childhood in Himachal Pradesh and undergraduate years in IIT Delhi. He pursued a doctoral degree at Georgia
Tech, Atlanta (2003-2008) and he was a postdoctoral research associate in
Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge (MA) (2008-2012). He currently resides in Chicago.